The Soap Allegations 6

Conclusion

Why should it matter whether or not human soap was made from the corpses of Nazi Germany's victims? Whether Nazi Germany, or even one Nazi, made human soap or attempted to make human soap does not change the fact that Hitler attempted to exterminate European Jewry and murdered between 5 and 6 million of them.

Compared with this monumental crime, the soap allegations can be seen as trivial.

Yet, the revisionists attach special importance to this question, hoping thereby to cast doubt on the Nuremberg proceedings and on the Holocaust itself.

For example, Mark Weber writes:

It is worth emphasizing here that the "evidence" presented at the Nuremberg Tribunal for the bogus soap story was no less substantial than the "evidence" presented for the claims of mass extermination in gas chambers. [32]

Bradley R. Smith:

If Bauer and Lipstadt are right, who supplied this false evidence about human soap to the Court? Why? Was the Court bamboozled about other anti-German atrocity stories? Which ones? The gas chambers maybe? [33]

Carlos Porter:

The human soap accusation is particularly important because it was upheld in the judgement at Nuremberg on the same page (IMT I-252) as gassing millions of Jews and cutting their hair off to make human hair mattresses. [34] (Emphasis in original.)

(Actually, the statement about the killing of millions is on the first two lines of I-253, and has nothing to do with the statement about mattresses on I-252 -- but in any case, why would the page number be the least bit important?)

As has already been pointed out several times above, the IMT did not "uphold" or "confirm" the soap allegations that these revisionists are talking about. Nor does it really matter whether or not the Nazis actually made human soap -- it does not affect, in any way whatsoever, the facts of the Holocaust.

Nor was the quantity or quality of the evidence for soap production in any way comparable to that of mass gassings: three testimonies and a few corroborating pieces of evidence is in no way comparable to the overwhelming stream of physical evidence and testimonies from the perpetrators and other witnesses of gassings and other facets of the Holocaust. To even try to draw the comparison is ludicrous.

But what the revisionists' writings on the soap allegations demonstrate is their usual techniques of anti-scholarship: deceit, denial, and misrepresentation. They misquote; they omit what contradicts their preconceived notions; and they offer nothing substantial to refute or disprove the statements of Mazur, Witton, and Neely. Then, they take their distorted case and say that it is only the beginning of "revisionist" historical successes: if the soap, why not the gas chambers?

The main front on which the revisionist battle is being fought is to correct the Holocaust story. Here, the years since the publication of the first Journal have seen remarkable retreats from the standard Holocaust story, which used to include soap made from Jewish corpses, gas chambers at Dachau, and all manner of fiendish methods of murder (including nuclear devices). Revisionists have convincingly demonstrated virtually every facet of the traditional Holocaust tale to be untrue, or at least wildly exaggerated, resulting in a inexorable whittling down of the "accepted" Holocaust story to a tiny fraction of what it once was. Even so, the "six million" figure remains, indicating that there is yet more work to be done. [35] (Emphasis Nizkor's.)

We still cannot say with certainty whether or not human soap was made at the Danzig Anatomical Institute. There are three affidavits from three people who worked there to that effect, and corroborating physical evidence. That is not sufficient to establish human soapmaking for certain, but neither can it be dismissed out of hand.

Unlike the "revisionist scholars" cited in this rebuttal, we will continue to investigate, examining all the evidence before reaching a conclusion, rather than adopting their practice, which is to develop their prejudices and then look for evidence to support them.